To many investors the opening quarter of 2013 has appeared to be very similar to the opening quarters of 2012 and 2011. Once again equity markets have started the year strongly and investor confidence appears to have returned. However, many investors are now subsequently concerned that the patterns of 2011 and 2012, where markets started strongly, but faded and retraced over the subsequent months, is once again going to play out during 2013. There is evidence to support that view, as the world remains in a period of slow economic growth and threats to that remain, but there is also evidence that 2013 will not follow the pattern of the preceding two years. Reasons for this include, that unlike 2012 there is no uncertainty regarding elections in the USA or China, plus economic fundamentals have continued to slowly improve, although significant country and regional differences clearly do exist, and simply that another year of recovery from the crisis has passed. Only at the end of 2013 will anyone be able to say with certainty that 2013 was different, or not. During the first quarter, equity markets, as measured by the MSCI World (Developed Markets) Index delivered a return of 7.73% . The quarter saw positive returns produced in all three months of the period, though it was January where markets rose over 5% that drove the quarterly return. February was effectively a flat return, while markets rose over 2% in March despite the news and renewed concerns as a function of the Cypriot crisis. From a regional perspective all developed markets produced a positive absolute return; even in US dollar terms (despite the weakening Japanese yen) Japan produced the strongest returns rising over 11.6% (and by more than 21% in yen terms), while North America rose over 9.6% and developed Asia ex Japan by over 7%. It was no surprise that Europe was the weakest market delivering a return of not quite 3%. However, despite the risk-on environment of the quarter emerging markets were substantially weaker than developed markets and even produced a slight decline of -1.6%.